1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to a board-to-board connector with reliable grounding means.
2. Description of Related Art
Board-to-Board connector assembly generally includes a plug and a receptacle connectors respectively mounted on two parallelly spaced printed circuit boards (PCB) and mated with each other for mechanical and electrical interconnection therebetween, whereby the corresponding printed circuit boards can be electrically connected with each other for signal transmission.
A conventional board-to-board connector assembly can be referred to U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,976 which discloses a plug and a corresponding receptacle connector. The receptacle connector includes a housing, a number of contacts disposed in inner opposite sides of the insulative housing, and a pair of shielding plates positioned on outer opposite sides of the insulative housing. Each shielding plate has a number of hooks extending from a bottom end thereof. The hooks extend into the insulative housing and contact with predetermined contacts for forming a grounding path to filter noises and EMI (electromagnetic interference).
With high speed and high frequency signals transmitting in the board-to-board connector assembly, contacts of the connector assembly generate much more quantity of heat comparing with low speed and low frequency signals transmission. However, there is no enough room inside the mated connector assembly for meeting the requirements of heat dissipation. Thus, an appropriate approach is to increase the height of the receptacle connector to provide additional room. Accordingly, the shielding plate and the contacts has to be heightened to match the heightened receptacle connector. Whereas, such heightened shielding plate and contacts are readily warped during assembly and transportation of the connector, which will cause the contact between the hooks of the shielding plate and the predetermined contacts unstable or even break away, thereby degrading the effect of filtering EMI and resulting in poor transmission of signals.
Hence, an improved board-to-board connector is desired to overcome the disadvantage of the prior art.